Managing Crisis Projects

Managing Crisis Projects Pg. 540

1. When a crisis project occurs the leader of the crisis team should be a high ranking individual in the company, preferably the CEO. By placing an executive as the project leader, they will be nimbler in decision making as well as show a general concern for the public because they are an officer of the company. James Burke (CEO of Tylenol) executed this perfectly by taking responsibility of the crisis.
2. Ideally, both would be good for the collaboration of the issues, however most crisis don’t have significant amounts of time to deliberate what to do. I think that a project sponsor is better for managing the crisis because they will have a clear view of what to do without all the competing interests of others in the company.
3. Effective communication is the key to successful crisis project management. The communication has to be clear, fast, and concise at all levels in and outside of the organization. Organization to media, media too public, organization too public, organization too agencies, agencies too public, and agencies to media. Open, clear, and honest communication is very important in solving crisis issues.
4. Stakeholder relations is very important during a crisis because they need to be involved from the beginning, by cascading information and helping to solve the issue. There are different levels of stakeholder relations during a crisis. For example, in the Tylenol case they worked to manage the relationship with the consumers rather than the stockholders. This is because one of the two groups had their lives on the line rather than financial stability.
5. This is difficult because they don’t want to be responsible for something that wasn’t their fault, but 9 out of 10 times they should accept responsibility of the crisis and start taking steps to help diminish and solve the negative effects of the problems. An example of this is the way British Airways delayed the inspection of the same type of plane that crashed during the Air France flight, while Air France grounded every plane and controlled the crisis.
6. The response time is crucial in successful crisis management. Companies that wait a long time before taking action will be viewed in a negative way by the public. It will show that the company doesn’t care and is unwilling to right the wrongs they have made. That is why it is important to take responsibility when something occurs rather than lay blame.
7. Compassion towards individuals and their families is extremely important during a crisis management scenario. When people feel as though they are left on their own when something bad happens, it’s likely they will not continue to believe and support the organization in question. People want to be relatable and when a company gives you the cold shoulder they will end up resenting them as well as people not directly affected. The Ford and Firestone case shows that both companies chose to lay blame rather than apologize to the families and communities they hurt.
8. A paperwork trail is very important because it can help determine where the issue began, give vital information that may prevent further loss, and provide the company with an outline of how they solved or did not solve the issue. This can also help as a guideline in solving future crises.
9. Capturing the lessons learned and best practices after a project crisis is important, because it can prevent mistakes that initially led to the issue and ideally prevent any reoccurrence of the crisis. The lessons learned are typically things the organization did wrong however, the outside organizations not directly involved in the crisis can learn from the mistakes and prevent any future crises that may happen to them.